Breaking Point
by Holli
Summary: Hiveswap It is foolish of you to keep hoping. You know what the future holds for you. or Xefros comes to a hard realization about his future.


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I know, I'm late to the party. I haven't seen a fic deal with this topic specifically, so I think I'm safe? Anyway, I saw a certain interaction with objects in Act 1 (see notes at the end), and I had to write something about it. Any familiar text is adapted/borrowed from the flavor text you get from object interactions.

**Breaking Point**

You are Xefros Tritoh, and the realization that you will never make it to the big leagues isn't something which comes to you all at once. Rather, it has been a series of smaller understandings which have finally combined together into a hot, frothing boil. The tryouts for the Thrashthrust Junior League are coming up, and you know that your Arena Stickball game is getting rusty. Between band practice with Tetrarch Dammek, revolutionary lectures with Tetrarch Dammek, and butling practice (mostly for Tetrarch Dammek), you don't have much time for anything else.

Time isn't the only problem, of course, or even the main one. Your powers of telekinesis are pitiful, too—the only thing saving you out on the field currently is your, admittedly, impressive physical strength, but you can't depend on that forever. The best Pushers don't rely on pure brute strength like you do. How can you ever hope to reach the level of your hero, Xultan Matzos, without the mental powers to match?

You can't, and it is foolish of you to keep hoping.

Besides, you know what the future holds for you.

The butler's uniform you'd ordered sweeps ago has finally arrived. You pull it out of the box, a sick feeling of finality settling in your acid tubes as you stare down at the glossy black material. These are the nicest clothes you own now. They are certainly the most expensive you own—they'd cost even more than the Arena Stickball gear you'd purchased.

You notice suddenly that you are holding the uniform too tightly, the fabric straining beneath your claws, and you loosen your grip to check the garment for damage. Luckily for you, you've only left wrinkles and not rips. You hate the sense of relief you'd felt, and you throw the uniform back into the box with a curse that would have made Dammek proud.

Hands clenching into tight fists, your ganderbulbs cast about your respite block, landing on your waregrid study scroll, and a low growl leaves your chug tube. You step towards it before stopping, shaking your head. No. No. The study scroll isn't the most expensive thing you've had to purchase to study for your assigned career, but it's expensive enough to be painful to replace. You've had this same conversation with yourself in the past, when you've had idle fantasies of taking your cuebat to the lot of your butling materials, but you've never felt this close to actually going through with it before.

You need to calm down before you do anything you'll wish you could take back, and you know just where to go.

Except, in your current mood, the Arena Stickball theme of your rumpus room is just another slap in the face: another reminder of what you can never have. There just isn't enough time, and you aren't good enough anyway. Even if you suddenly had all the time on Alternia, you'd still never be good enough. Here you are, standing in the middle of your rumpus room, about to bawl like a wiggler because you've finally been forced to face facts.

You want to call your moirail. More than anything. You need him here to keep you from falling apart. But you already know what the Tetrarch thinks of Arena Stickball—it's just a dumb game, a waste of time. And coming over to your hive to comfort you about not ever being good enough to reach the heights of your athletic fantasies out in the field would be an even greater waste of time. He has much more important work to be doing—for the band, for the rebellion, for whatever else—, and the worst part is you know it's true: he _does _have more important things to do than coddle you about Arena Stickball.

Even if you call him and he _does_ come, what _good_ will it do? There isn't anything to be done: there just isn't time to devote to Arena Stickball to remain competitive, and your telekinetic powers aren't good enough for it anyway. You're destined to be a gutterblood nobody butler no one is ever going to remember. Worthless.

You hear a faint rattling from your Bobblenug figure collection, and you turn your head towards them, realizing you'd lost control of your telekinesis. For another burgundy blood, losing control of their telekinesis could be dangerous, but for you? You have barely the impact of a gentle breeze. The figures rattle again, their heads nodding in agreement. Your lip curls over your fangs, and you're not smiling. Your claws are buried into your palms—if not for the thick callouses there, you're certain you would be bleeding by now. Your physical strength is, as mentioned previously, impressive. About the only impressive thing about you.

The Bobblenugs nod again, passing their rattling judgment on you. And they would know, being the best players who'd ever stepped onto the velvet, just how lacking you are. Just how much of an idiot you are to ever have believed you could have joined their ranks.

You don't even remember grabbing the cuebat, but it's in your hands, and you're bringing it down on the collection of nodding heads. You only swing three times, but your cuebat packs a wallop when wielded by you (even if it's not chalked up first), and the damage is done. Little bits of plastic trolls litter the floor along with large parts of a broken shelving unit.

You wedge the cuebat back into its stand, a little too roughly, but you're in a daze now. Your anger is spent, leaving nothing but emptiness behind. The splaysack is inviting, and you sink onto it, the proximal comfort of the soper enveloping you. Time passes and you don't notice. You don't think. You just stare ahead of you. When you finally come back to yourself, hours have passed.

The casualties are many. You recognize them all as you clean up the mess. Each player you look up to, each treasure you added to your collection over the sweeps. You're not looking through the mess for anything salvageable as you pick up the remains—you don't want confirmation. What you see already is enough to upset you.

However, when all is said and done, one is missing. You know you haven't picked it up yet: while you weren't looking for it, you _were_ looking for it and hadn't seen it. You're about to give up when you notice light play off of something under the Table Arena Stickball. Bending down, you reach for the object, your blood pusher working hard in your chest.

Xultan Matzos grins up at you, proud and determined. You laugh, feeling tears in your ganderbulbs. Of course, it'd take more than a few swings with a cuebat to take _him_ out. You feel almost foolish, how glad you are that he's in one piece. Gingerly, you set him on the TV stand along with the other survivor, Dromed Baktar. You'll have to rebuild the shelf so they can return to their proper places, but you're still feeling worn out. Tomorrow, you'll take care of this.

As for the rest... You feel Xultan Matzos behind your shoulder, believing in you.

END NOTES:

CUEBAT + BUBBLENUGS = Yeah, you've, uh, gone down that road before. You used to have a lot more of these.


End file.
